A magpie moment

Springtime in Melbourne and the first round of surviving fledglings are reaching their first hurdle . This young Australian Magpie is being taught by its parents to begin looking for food rather than scream out “feed me” loudly and continuously. The parents practice much patience as they show the young one how to listen then dig for grubs on the ground. During this time we leave out a minimum amount of special native bird paste for this species. After 3 weeks of feeding the fledgling this paste the parents now pretend to eat it until the young one actually picks up and eats pieces of the paste independently. The moment this happens the parents fly off leaving the baby eating by itself.